Fruitfulness eBook

Meantime Mathieu, amid his creative work, received
Marianne’s gay and courageous assistance.
And she was not merely a skilful helpmate, taking
a share in the general management, keeping the accounts,
and watching over the home. She remained both
a loving and well-loved spouse, and a mother who nursed,
reared, and educated her little ones in order to give
them some of her own sense and heart. As Boutan
remarked, it is not enough for a woman to have a child;
she should also possess healthy moral gifts in order
that she may bring it up in creditable fashion.
Marianne, for her part, made it her pride to obtain
everything from her children by dint of gentleness
and grace. She was listened to, obeyed, and worshipped
by them, because she was so beautiful, so kind, and
so greatly beloved. Her task was scarcely easy,
since she had eight children already; but in all things
she proceeded in a very orderly fashion, utilizing
the elder to watch over the younger ones, giving each
a little share of loving authority, and extricating
herself from every embarrassment by setting truth
and justice above one and all. Blaise and Denis,
the twins, who were now sixteen, and Ambroise, who
was nearly fourteen, did in a measure escape her authority,
being largely in their father’s hands. But
around her she had the five others—­from
Rose, who was eleven, to Louise, who was two years
old; between them, at intervals of a couple of years,
coming Gervais, Claire, and Gregoire. And each
time that one flew away, as it were, feeling his wings
strong enough for flight, there appeared another to
nestle beside her. And it was again a daughter,
Madeleine, who came at the expiration of those two
years. And when Mathieu saw his wife erect and
smiling again, with the dear little girl at her breast,
he embraced her passionately and triumphed once again
over every sorrow and every pang. Yet another
child, yet more wealth and power, yet an additional
force born into the world, another field ready for
to-morrow’s harvest.

And ’twas ever the great work, the good work,
the work of fruitfulness spreading, thanks to the
earth and thanks to woman, both victorious over destruction,
offering fresh means of subsistence each time a fresh
child was born, and loving, willing, battling, toiling
even amid suffering, and ever tending to increase
of life and increase of hope.

XIII

TWO more years went by, and during those two years
Mathieu and Marianne had yet another daughter; and
this time, as the family increased, Chantebled also
was increased by all the woodland extending eastward
of the plateau to the distant farms of Mareuil and
Lillebonne. All the northern part of the property
was thus acquired: more than five hundred acres
of woods, intersected by clearings which roads soon
connected together. And those clearings, transformed
into pasture-land, watered by the neighboring springs,
enabled Mathieu to treble his live-stock and attempt
cattle-raising on a large scale. It was the resistless
conquest of life, it was fruitfulness spreading in
the sunlight, it was labor ever incessantly pursuing
its work of creation amid obstacles and suffering,
making good all losses, and at each succeeding hour
setting more energy, more health, and more joy in
the veins of the world.